We're accountable because we've failed to create a framework in our society that supervises, monitors and serves as a check on these institutions, two of them private, that have failed to properly protect potential child victims.
We're accountable because we haven't made it a priority to expand the resources and budgets of our various children and youth agencies.
We're accountable because we've relied too much on private charitable organizations to provide the support and services that kids need, and that aren't required to be as open as government, nor as stringently regulated.
We're accountable because we haven't applied continued pressure on these institutions to follow through and clean up their acts. A second grand jury report was issued regarding the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. While steps have been taken with regard to juveniles in relation to the Luzerne County scandal, large scale reforms to the Judicial Conduct Board, which was alerted to the corruption of the ex-judges and did nothing, have collected dust. And yes, if more than a year has passed since the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice issued its recommendations and nothing has happened to either the structure or the personnel at the JCB, then it's collecting dust.
Shame on us all.
Look, writing a bunch of new laws and regulations is easy. That's not the heat that's going to kill this cancer.
It goes deeper than that. It's a cultural issue. Institutions and their leaders need to be held accountable. Almost all corruption starts with secrecy and insularity. Openness should be demanded of all our institutions. Leaders who fail to protect kids and their apologists need to be confronted and driven from their holes.
People need to understand that no individual or institution, no matter how large and powerful, comes before the needs and safety of children. Powerful people and powerful institutions are aided in their corruption when people are afraid to criticize, or worse yet, attack those who do. Good individuals and institutions can withstand criticism. Corrupt ones crumble from scrutiny.
For too long we've had an old-boy culture in this state that lets the powerful put their interests ahead of the greater good. That culture needs to be smashed to pieces.
Think I'm making too much of this? Then think of that scared, violated little boy getting raped in the shower by a grown man. Recognize that horror story is just the latest in a decade full of them.
Subscribe to The Legal Intelligencer
-
Larry Hohol
What the Penn State and Kids for Cash scandals have in common
There is plenty Moral Failure to go around here. I rarely paint with a broad brush but the Legal Profession as a whole is right up there at the top of my list. I am a Luzerne County Native so the Kids for Cash scandal reigns’ supreme in my short term memory. There was no error or mistake that allowed 6000 children to be illegally jailed by two BRIBED judges in Luzerne County. There was a complete corruption and abandonment of laws and morals by all participants. This includes the court’s oversight agencies, especially the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. These horrific acts against the children of Luzerne County were allowed to continue for years with both oversight agencies possessing detailed knowledge of these crimes and doing NOTHING to stop them. Huge, documented conflicts of interest such as the son of a retired Supreme Court Chief Justice owning the Kiddy Prison that paid bribes to the judges and the Chairman of the JCB being business partners (two businesses) with Kids for Cash, Judge Conahan, have been completely ignored. I am here to tell you that if the FBI had not stepped in when they did these crimes WOULD be continuing unabated to this very day no matter how loudly the citizens of Luzerne County screamed about it.
Just like Penn State, powerful people knew of the evil and did NOTHING to correct this evil. Fear in many forms probably misguided many of those who should have taken action. Many have questioned what they would do if placed in the same shoes of those now scorned in both scandals. Without doubt, I know what I would have done and I know what I will continue to do. For over 30 years, I and a handful of other vilified citizens have been screaming from the rooftops about the corruption and moral decay of our judicial system. It is not just our children who are victims here rather these children are examples of just how all encompassing our moral demise has become.
Attorneys are on the front lines and deal with this decay on a daily basis. Very few attorneys will ever, in their entire career file misconduct charges against any sitting judge in Pennsylvania regardless of the evidence they possess. As individual Attorneys I understand the pitfalls of such an undertaking but your Bar Associations are VERY powerful. To all of the good Attorneys out there, PLEASE HELP. To all of the bad Attorneys out there, start looking over your shoulder. We have had enough. Sign me: Larry Hohol-Author
-
Richard Matthews
Good piece. Most of us will never come face with pure evil as that kid and the witness McQueary did in that shower. I'd like to think that were I in McQueary's place I would have bumrushed the pervert and whailed on him, but impossible to say. As a former "fellowshipped and stipended" grad student myself, I might have failed morally, miserably, like McQ did when he saw a "superior" in horrid action. Oh how McQ is wishing now that he had taken decisive, violent action at the biggest, most challenging moment of his life. I take it he was in shock, really, and the self preservation instinct was so strong he just got paralyzed. Calling his daddy instead of police seems cowardly, but it's a decision McQ has to live with the rest of his life. I've no doubt he has been tortured ever since, and is coming to Jesus now, as is Paterno for his shocking moral failing.
-
Need4Reform
This is the most honest news article I have had the opportunity to read in a long time. What really disturbs me is the fact that Noonan was aware of the ordeal at Penn State and did absolutely nothing in response. That is scary.
-
Jeff Spangler
The Penn State Board of Trustees has appointed a Special Committee to investigate how the University failed to protect the children from a serial rapist, and how to put controls in place to correct, detect and prevent further atrocities. The key to this Committee's success will be the independence and reputation of the law firm selected to do this important work. Having had some experience with corporate investigations of misconduct, I believe that the Board should select a firm from outside Pennsylvania's politically active lawyers with broad experience in these internal inquiries and a leader of national prominence. Most such firms are in Washington DC or New York City. The "usual suspects" firms in Pennsylvania do not have the cultural and political independence necessary to give their resulting conclusions and recommendations credence and acceptability.
Comments are not moderated. To report offensive comments, click here.
Reader Comments